


All The Other Children

by Go0se



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Canon Compliant, DGM Hallow spoilers, Gen, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-03 10:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11530431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: Alma knew every person and wireless golem down here, and none of them would be crouching behind cabinet shadows in a storage hallway.In which Alma and Yuu very briefly meet another apostle.





	All The Other Children

**Author's Note:**

> Hello it's Goose, at 3:25a.m. on Tuesday the 15th of August, this line is a reference to [a Mountain Goats song intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvuFOurY9RQ) that I like a lot even though the song has nothing to do with the rest of the fic, and this is a horror story.
> 
> Angst! Because that's what we need with these two sad, _sad_ children, right? More angst? I'm pretty sure that's what we all need. \o/ I've been staring at this fic for almost a month and it hasn't done any cooler tricks, so, decided now is the time to post it. Inspired by the line in Hallow where the doctor is lamenting that Yuu's memories will trigger a sanity break, "like the other children before him". 
> 
> FYI: the medical warning is for the first section (up to the asterisk) which has brief non-graphic description of IV removal and like, general after-anesthesia treatment. The torture reference tag is for what the Seconds are put through. Please step carefully if needed.
> 
> Thank you to [Kitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/waterkat33) and to Eevie, who helped me greatly when editing this; thank you to my other non-DGM-watching friends for enduring my anime-related screaming over the last while. And thank you to you, for reading.
> 
> ~~~~

There were so many trees that they pushed through every wall and floor and ceiling tile. She watched them without moving, flat on her back.

She’d been in a forest, and something terrible had happened. She was in a forest now and something terrible was happening. Wasn’t it? She stared at the ceiling, trying to tell through the light. She felt heavy all over except for her head.

  
“Good morning. We’re here,” a doctor’s voice said, and something was tugged from inside her arm. She made a small noise of pain. Something cool touched her forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Temperature still above average,” a different doctor’s voice informed the first. There was a flurry of movement above her, white sleeves reaching over her from somewhere outside of her sight. She felt her skin pull and then snap back when something cold was peeled off the center of her chest. She breathed in sharply, but didn’t quite feel the pain. Her head was too fogged.  
Fingers pressed methodically on her chest and sides. “Pulse and respiration steady.”

  
“Hey. Follow this pencil for a second.” Something moved in front of her eyes, but she couldn’t track it, too focused on the branches. “Are you following?”

“It’s possible she’s still hallucinating, right? The transfer over here might have done some more damage.”

“Damn.” Someone said something that sounded like a name, twice. “-- are you still seeing those trees? Plants?”

 

Was that her name? Didn’t she have a different one? She felt like she was going to puke and pass out again.  
Slowly, she nodded. She hadn’t realized how much her head hurt until she’d tried moving it.

   
The same person sighed. “We need to get her to the director before her condition degenerates any further."

A bright light flashed. She jerked away from it, hitting the back of her head on whatever she was laying on. Tears stung her eyes.  
“Pupils responding normally,” the first voice reported. “Sorry, sweetheart.”  
  
"Listen to me. Look at me? Good. The trees are just hallucinations,” the doctor said. The cold thing on her forehead was lifted away. “Remember, they’re not real. When you feel better you won’t have them anymore. Try not to pay attention to them.”

 

Not pay attention? But they were everywhere.  
It was easier to listen. Obediently she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing away the trees and grasping roots. When she opened them they were still there. She wanted to cry for real.

 

There wasn't time. Someone pulled a shirt over her head. She moved her heavy arms in cooperation automatically, and then pulled her hair out from the neck by herself.  
Then she was sitting upright, and someone was tugging her forwards, off of the surface she’d been laying on. “On your feet now,” the doctor said. “Don’t want to keep them waiting,” and they said what sounded like a name again. They put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.    
She remembered where her feet were and managed to keep them underneath her.

 

Time moved in jumps. She was being pulled upright, and then she and the doctors were walking in a very tight hallway, all noise and harsh fluorescents. Her shorter stride made her much slower than them, but they waited for her impatiently. They kept saying, “We don’t have time to waste.”  
She couldn’t remember where they were all going. She didn’t want to leave. All she wanted to do was be somewhere without so much light until her headache stopped. She couldn’t stand it.

  
At the first break in ranks, she pushed through the small gap between adults and bolted, tripping around the nearest corner she could. Branches and leaves and roots followed her, blurring through the dark stonework to burst free above her head.  
She was in a forest and something terrible was happening; she’d never been in a forest in her life; _they’re not real,_ nothing she was seeing was real. Wasn’t it?  
Behind her came shouting and sharp footfalls, noises that faded as she ran. She had no idea where she was going and didn’t care.

  
A new hallway appeared. She followed it down and-- thank God--found somewhere dark and small and safe.  
Relieved, exhausted, she stayed there; dropping to the floor and curling up with her back braced against the wall and her knees against the heavy box. It felt cool on her skin. She covered her face and waited for everything to make sense again.

 

*

 

Yuu saw the shape first.

Alma had managed to wheedle him into playing a game of hide and seek, finally, after two weeks of trying. Yuu was a terrible hider. That didn’t matter; Alma was just happy to be with him. He had found a storage hallway on one of the upper levels of the lab that they could play in without bothering anybody. The hallway made for a good hide-and-seek place because it didn’t have a lot of light, but did have a lot of boxes.

It was Alma’s turn to seek again. He was walking around loudly, hands on his hips, as he pantomimed looking for his friend (even though he obviously knew exactly where Yuu was).  
Suddenly Yuu’s hand shot out of his ‘hiding’ place and he pulled himself up close to Alma, tense as a coiled spring.

Alma froze for a second—Yuu never tried to hug Alma or grab Alma’s hand first when they played—and then turned to Yuu excitedly. “What is it?” He asked, forgetting to pretend to be surprised that Yuu had popped out of the space between two filing cabinets.

“Shhh!” Yuu half-checked over his shoulder, like trying to use his loose hair to mask him looking at something. He turned back to Alma, so close he could see his eyelashes, and whispered, “There’s someone there.”

Alma’s eyes narrowed for a second, confused. “Where?” He whispered back.

“Behind those _cabinets_ ,” Yuu hissed, and the darkness behind him shifted.

Alma’s first instinct was to run and find an adult. He knew every person and wireless golem in the whole lab, and none of them would be crouching behind storage cabinets. It could be dangerous. What if it was another ghost?  
But then—he looked at Yuu, who was still hanging onto Alma’s arm urgently, his eyes sharp and distrustful. Yuu, who had asked for his help. (In his own way. Sort of.)

Alma bit his lip and looked forwards, stepping towards the shadow that had almost detached itself from the rest of the darkness around them. “Who’s there?” He called out, his voice only shaking a little bit.

 

The shadow rose in height and then—another kid stepped out from the gloom. Still half-hidden in the darkened hallway, leaning against the cabinet like it was the only way to stay upright.

Alma was so startled he flinched backwards, stepping on Yuu’s foot in the process. Yuu swore at him and dropped Alma’s arm. “Idiot!”

The other kid also flinched, dropping to a crouch on the floor and making to scuttle backwards into the dark again.

 

“No, I’m sorry!” Alma said quickly—to the new kid, not to Yuu, who never accepted Alma’s apologies anyway. Alma dropped to the ground, too, so he could look at them. A pair of dark eyes in a pale face stared back at him. The face was framed by long dark hair, like Yuu’s, except while Yuu always kept his loose, the other kid’s was tied in a braid. It was hard to tell in the shadows but their shirt looked like the same one Alma himself was wearing.  
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “We won’t be so loud, okay?” His mind was reeling; where, when, how would—?

“Are you real?” The other child asked hoarsely.

“Of course we’re real, are you stupid?” Yuu angrily replied, tensing up like a cat. He was crouched beside Alma, his hands tightened into fists which he balanced on the ground.

“Yuu!” Alma hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. It would’ve knocked a normal adult over, but Yuu barely even scowled. “You can be nice to him!”  
“Why would I be nice to--”  
“I’m not a him!” The other kid interrupted, puffing up indignantly. “I’m a girl!”  
“Oh!” Alma said, blinking as he looked back at the other kid. He blushed a little at his mistake, rubbing his hair nervously. “I’m sorry. I’ve never met a girl before.”

  
Now Yuu was looking at Alma like he had grown another head. “Don’t be dumb,” he muttered, “Doctor Renny and Doctor Twi are women.”  
They were, Alma admitted. But that was different. Women were adults; they were doctors and scientists, they wore white coats and headphones (sometimes) and carried clipboards. They dosed out medications and talked down to you when they had to break up a fight. Women watched from above while a shell of Innocence broke Alma open again and again and again.  
Women didn’t hunch in the shadows of dark hallways, cold and scared. Girls did, though. It seemed like.

  
Shyness kept Alma’s mouth shut for a second. Oh man, what had the book that Doctor Edgar had given him said? If you felt embarrassed talking to someone, you should start over with small things. “Um, I’m Alma,” he offered to the girl. “What’s your name?”

 

*

 

She obviously knew her own name. She hadn’t actually forgotten-forgotten it before. She’d just been panicking, like Doctor Anne had told her she did, and she hadn’t remembered the steps that they had taught her to help calm down.

But the dark and the quiet had given her time to calm down a little, by now, so the thoughts could fit. She could even say it out loud.

If she wanted to or not was another question.

There weren’t any leaves pressing out from the boys’ faces—the one on the left scowled at her, but his skin just looked like regular skin. Leaves blew through the air above them though. On the wall behind them, a large crack was appearing as little shoots of smooth green sprouts broke through it. The stone didn’t make a sound when it broke, and none of it hit the floor. It made her head pulse.  
Her throat hurt. She swallowed. What could she lose?

 

*

 

“… Marguerite,” the girl answered.

“Wow, that’s a long name!”

“I guess?” Marguerite looked like she wasn’t sure. Her eyes kept flickering over Alma and Yuu’s head, like they were following spots of dust in a beam of light. But the only lights in here were the ones at the end of the hallway. (The cabinets were always locked, but from the way the hallway was set up it was like no one wanted to even see the outside of them, for some reason.)

“Are you—did you just wake up?” Alma asked, hope daring to bloom. His heart started picking up and he couldn’t help but smile. “Are you an apostle, too?”

Marguerite shook her head, but then nodded. “I’ve been awake for a while,” she said. “I mean, I, I think. I am an apostle,” she added, and that part sounded different. It sounded like the kind of thing you said when someone told you it a lot. “But I’m not from here.” She frowned.

“No one in the holes was missing this morning, remember?” Yuu said from Alma’s side. He’d crept forward slightly, so he and Alma were shoulder-to-shoulder, and he was looking at Alma through his hair again. “She couldn’t be one of us.”

“Oh,” Alma said again, and his shoulders sagged. Then it hit him. “You must be from one of the other labs!”

She nodded again, a little slowly. “I was asleep for a little while,” she said. Her voice still sounded sore. “Not like—not asleep, but, resting. And, and then I woke up, and we were here.” She squinted at him. “Are you sure you’re real?”

 

  
“Yeah,” Yuu repeated.  
“ _Wow,_ ” Alma said. He hadn't met anyone from another lab before. He was bursting with other things to say, but Yuu nudged him.

“What are you hiding from?” Yuu asked Marguerite warily, still keeping his voice down.

 

She looked at him.  
For a long time. Like, longer than people usually took to say things. Alma was starting to worry that Yuu would get impatient and try to punch her when she finally answered. “My doctors,” she said. “Anne and Marie-Christine. They said that I’m here because the other doctors can help me to get better, and they brought me into this room-- there was so many lights, and everyone was talking, it hurt my head.” She hunched up her shoulders. “I just wanted to be somewhere quiet.”

 

Oh. Alma knew that feeling. “Sometimes after the synchrotests I can’t be in the kitchen for days because it’s too bright,” he told her quietly.  
Yuu shifted beside him. He was remembering it too, Alma knew.  
Marguerite watched them both for a second and then nodded, like she was admitting a secret.

 

*

 

It was good, talking to someone who knew what it was like. Alma—was it Alma? It was, he’d just said it, but words were slipping from her again. Alma had _said_ that he and angry Yuu were apostles too, but she hadn’t really believed him. Not until right now.

It was good to meet him, and Yuu, but it was also just— just—wrong. It was so wrong. The two boys were too real to be other apostles. Marguerite had only ever imagined others, before.

Doctor Anne and Doctor Marie-Christine and the scientists had told her she was the only one. The only apostle. That was why she had to work extra hard to synchronize with the Innocence and save the (outside) world, because she was humanity’s one last hope. They had told her that her whole life, even before the trees had started bleeding through everywhere.

Marguerite knew she had a fever, but she felt cold. It was just lies.

They’d all been lying to her.

  
*

None of them said anything for a moment. Not even Yuu grumbled. The machinery in the lab walls hummed around them.

Then Alma perked up again. “I know somewhere quiet we can all go,” he said eagerly, ignoring Yuu’s noise of protest and disgust beside him. Alma stood up and held out his hand for Marguerite to take. “It’s really nice, I promise. And you can meet everyone else! If you want to,” he added quickly. “I mean, they’re all asleep still, but I know all their names. We can say hi to them! Please say you will?”

“There are more?” Marguerite blurted, startled. She’d pressed her shoulder to the filing cabinet again. “Of—of us?”

“Yeah, a lot more! Ten people,” Alma told her happily. “It was eleven, before, but then Yuu woke up.” He looked affectionately at the other boy, then towards Marguerite again. “I know they’d all be really happy to meet you!”

“She can’t _meet_ anyone if they’re all still asleep,” Yuu muttered mutinously. Still, he stood up as well.

Marguerite took a second to take Alma’s hand and get to her feet. Her palm was really warm. Burning up, almost, and she was shaking.

Alma blinked, suddenly a little worried for this newfound friend.

Going along when Alma pulled her forwards slightly, she stepped into the light coming down from the end of the hallway. Alma saw that he’d been right, earlier: she was totally wearing the same thin tunic as himself and Yuu. Her pants were the same too, except the hems were green instead of purple, and she had on thin sandals instead of being barefoot. She was almost exactly the same height as him. Her dark eyes had hollow purple-pink-red bruises underneath them.  
And—and Alma’s eyes caught onto the cracks. Marguerite had wounds in her face, thin lines that spider-webbed up her neck from under her tunic shirt, stretching almost to the bridge of her nose. Not cuts or scars. Like her skin was a piece of stone that had been hit with something.

 

Regeneration strain marks. Made from their bodies trying too hard to heal after synchrotests ran for a long time—“As long as we have to,” Doctor Sahlins always said, and the ankle-deep liquid on the floor of Alma’s synchro-chamber was more blood than water. Alma had seen the same marks on himself and Yuu so many times he’d lost count, and every single time he’d try to ignore them, covering up with his overshirt to hide the way his limbs were crosshatched or blithely chattering at Yuu about anything except the split that underscored his friend’s eye, but Alma would still always _know_.

She really is an apostle too, he thought; but the thought didn’t have the same hope and joy that it did seconds before. In its place, he’s—

There was so much—

It tasted like bile at the back of Alma’s throat, the seething redness, sorrow that merged seamlessly into _hatred_ , raw and panicked, violently, and anger so thick it felt like his brain would burst; all surrounded by an emotion Alma didn’t understand and had no name for—like something important had been taken from him, a screaming hollowness where something important should be. It was always in him, this feeling, and usually he could keep it buried way down but right then it was fully present at the front of his mind like a pulsing wound.

For a second Alma stared ahead, seeing nothing, hearing only his heart beat louder and louder.

Something nudged his arm. His head turned automatically.

Yuu’s suspicious—and underneath that, worried—eyes looked at him through dark bangs. “Alma?”

_Oh, Yuu._

As suddenly as it had flared the seething red feeling dropped out of him, fading into the background noise as shame rushed in to fill the space. Alma felt dizzy. He squeezed his eyes shut against tears that were suddenly pricking at them.

He just—Alma just needed to be a better apostle in a way that would let him properly synchronize, somehow. He would someday; he had faith. The others would wake up and join him and Yuu—and now Marguerite, too—and they would all synchronize with Innocence, get out of the labs together and save the world. Alma believed that. He did.

He couldn’t let anyone know about what he’d just been feeling. Least of all Yuu. The last thing that Alma ever wanted was to scare him. He had no idea what he’d do without him.

Alma smiled at his friend as brightly as he could. “It’s nothing,” he told Yuu, and then turned to look at Marguerite too. “Let’s all go together,” he said.

She was staring behind them, what was only an empty bit of wall. She only looked back at him after he tugged on her hand again. After a second of hesitation, she smiled. The lines on her face twisted a little.

Alma pushed down the feeling some more, mapping out how to best get to the birth room from this dark place instead-- he had memorized the layout of the labs a long time ago. Mind made up, he nodded in the direction so Marguerite would get it, and turned, certain that Yuu would follow them.

  
*

 

For a moment—for just a couple moments, holding onto the solid hand of someone who understood, with another kid running behind her who did too, on their way to meet more people like them, Alma laughing happily as they ran, no roots phasing up through the floor like ghosts to catch onto her feet and make her fall—she felt herself hope.

 

*

 

They made it down two levels.

As they stepped into the hallway down to the birthing room, suddenly, there was a sound like a fan on loose paper and they were surrounded by spell feathers, glowing angrily in the middle of the air.  
From somewhere behind them, a deep voice chimed: “You are out of bounds, apostle.”

  
Alma skidded to a stop, Yuu almost slamming into him.  
“Crows!” Yuu shouted, his eyes going wide and angry. Marguerite flinched and spun in a circle, like she was looking for the way out.  
The spell feathers crackled. Alma threw his arms out to protect the other two instinctively. Though, it wouldn’t do any good. He squeezed his eyes shut against the inevitable electric shock. The Crows wouldn’t kill them, they would never kill apostles, it would be crazy even to try, but—

 

“Stop!”

 

“Doctor Edgar!” Alma’s eyes flew open and he physically sagged on his feet with relief. He turned towards the sound of running footsteps, watching Yuu and Marguerite do the same beside him.

Almost reluctantly the spell feathers cleared, peeling away from the square barrier they’d made in the air and flying back to their owners, sliding effortlessly up the loose red sleeves of the Crows that were advancing down the corridor towards them. Alma suppressed a shudder at seeing them and their masked faces.

But it was okay, because running ahead of the Crows were three people in white coats: Doctor Edgar, who’d called off the attack, and two that Alma didn’t know.  
“There you two are,” Edgar said, slowing his run to a walk; and then he caught himself up, eyes going wide as his stride forwards froze completely. “Oh, and I see you’ve found—oh.”

“We were just going down to see everyone!” Alma said quickly. “After we met Marguerite she told us she had a headache and it’s the quietest place in the lab so I thought—”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Yuu muttered beside him. He was watching the two unfamiliar doctors. They had kept running when Edgar slowed down, and were only now returning to a walk; they were entirely focused on Marguerite, who was standing very still.

Alma shut up.  
He decided to hold Marguerite’s hand again. He didn’t know her that well—at all, really—but, but he and Yuu and her were in this together. If _he_ had been the one who’d woken up in some unfamiliar lab, he would definitely want someone to stick by him. He was a little angry at these doctors he didn’t know. They had only just met--he had finally, finally met another apostle other than Yuu--they couldn’t take Marguerite away from him already! It wasn’t _fair._  
Alma could still feel her arm shaking a little. Maybe Marguerite was thinking the same thing.

 

“Where were you?” One of the doctors said sharply when she had stopped in front of Marguerite. She kneeled down so they were at closer to eye level. “We were very worried when you ran off like that,” she continued. “We were looking everywhere.” She didn’t even glance over at Alma or Yuu.

Marguerite tucked her chin to her chest, looked at the wall beside them. She didn’t say anything.

 

*

  
She couldn’t look at them or she’d explode. The roots were dripping from the ceiling like poison snakes. They were writhing. She could feel one of the boys’ hand on hers, and it was the only reason--it was the only reason she could keep still. She felt her pulse beat in her neck. Everything was horrifyingly close. This was real and she’s real and the other apostles were real and--  
And the forest _was_ real. Not the one she was seeing, but the one she remembered. Something horrible had happened to her there. She knew it, suddenly, permanently, like she knew her own breath. Oh, God.

 

*

 

“It’s time we get back on schedule,” the other unfamiliar doctor said after a short silence. She was the one carrying the clipboard—there was always at least one, Alma thought, who had a clipboard. She tapped on it and then turned, angling her body down the hallway, very clearly expecting the other doctor and the girl follow her without question.  “Come along, Marguerite.”

“We can go with her,” Alma suggested hopefully, stepping forwards. For once, he didn’t even feel the eye-daggers that Yuu threw at his back.  He very purposefully took deep breaths so he wouldn’t chicken out and flinch away from the adult’s disapproval, like he always used to, when he and Yuu would get into fights. “I know a shortcut to--”

  
Doctor Edgar decided to interrupt him just then by clearing his throat. He walked up to the children and put his hand on Alma’s shoulder, smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry, but that’s not possible, Alma. You boys have work to do, too.”

 _Work._ Alma’s shoulders sagged at the same time as ice-cold dread spread out from his stomach. He was careful to keep all of it off of his face. The Crows were still standing in a line behind the doctors, silent and watchful, arms hidden inside their robes.  
“Oh. Okay,” Alma said in a quiet voice. He reluctantly let go of Marguerite's hand.

 

Doctor Edgar and a phalanx of Crows led him and Yuu off down one side of the hallway, while more Crows and the two unfamiliar doctors led Marguerite down the other.

Alma wanted to wish her luck, or say goodbye, but he was worried that it might get her into more trouble. Instead he just dragged his feet, watching her until she disappeared. He hoped she could feel his eyes; that she remembered she was leaving but she wasn’t alone.  
Marguerite looked back a couple times. Twice she was looking at the ceiling with wide eyes, but once she seemed to see him.

 

*

 

They were back in the tight formation, now doubled up with Crows on all sides. It tasted bitter, being quiet when she knew they were all lying to her, and they knew—they _knew_ she knew, but still the doctors were saying nothing.

These people. She’d been taken care of by them her whole life. Never once had they encouraged her to ask any questions. Marguerite felt sweat soak into the back of her shirt. She was freezing.

Leaves and plants crowded the ceiling, pushing their way out from between the piping and unsealed stone like insistent hands. Here and there a flower bud unfurled as she passed underneath it, yellow and white and bright and dripping with blood. She twisted her head to follow the blood drips with her eyes, from the ceiling onto the floor, where they disappeared. 

Something terrible had happened, was happening, and would happen soon.  
She understood now: she was going to die. Her doctors had never brought her here to get better. She was too sick, or she knew too much. And it didn’t even matter, because the Order had other apostles they could rely on; other kids who’d went through what she went through. They would still be going through it after she was gone. Marguerite couldn’t breathe.

She looked back one last time, along the long hallway instead of at the thick rotting green in the ceiling. She caught Alma’s eyes through all the space.

He waved.

  
*

  
  
After Marguerite had turned out of sight, Alma had to face forwards properly again. Edgar had put a careful but insistent hand on his back to hurry him ahead. They had a schedule to keep, too, and Doctor Sahlins hated being kept waiting.

The walk down to the synchronization rooms was a long one. Crows’ robes whispered on the stone floor around them, machinery hummed and clanked in the walls they passed. Yuu had crossed his arms over his chest and was staring at his feet.

Alma couldn’t stand the silence. He peppered Doctor Edgar with questions to fill it. “Is Marguerite going to be staying here with us?” He asked, hopefully.

“No,” the adult replied with his usual gentle tone. “She’s only going to be here for a short time, and after that, she’ll… need to go back to her own home. Very soon.”

“Oh.” Alma studied the ceiling for a second. “Where is her home?”

“She lives in one of the other labs. A long way away from here.”

“Why did she leave it to come here?”

“Uh--well, the doctors at her lab noticed that she’d been sick lately. So they came over here to ask us if we could help her get better. And we will.”

“Get better from what?” Yuu asked, his voice gravelly. Alma looked over, surprised; his friend was still crossing his arms but he glared up at Edgar, his blue eyes looking more like ice than usual. “She was acting weird when we saw her. What’s she sick from?”

Edgar coughed. Just as he was about to answer, a crackly voice sounded from his golem (which had been flapping beside them all the way down the staircases). “Doctor Martin-Chang?”

Edgar turned to it to answer quickly, something about paperwork. Yuu grimaced and looked back to his feet.

When Edgar had finished his call, Alma tried another question: “In the other labs, are there other apostles who are—”

“What’s it matter?” Yuu asked harshly, and he shot Alma a furious glare. “Quit chattering about it, it doesn’t change anything.”

“Yuu!” Edgar admonished. “Alma can ask me anything he wants. Alma?”

Alma shook his head and stared at the floor, blinking back tears. The words stung, and a couple months ago, they would’ve turned the walk into a fight. But now Alma understood his friend better. He wasn’t mad at Yuu; he knew that the other boy was just scared. He always got angrier when he was scared.  
It was okay. Alma was afraid too.

 

By the time that they had reached the corridors leading to the Innocence Synchronization chambers—too soon, it felt like, even though the walk was so long—Yuu had calmed down a little. He even bumped his shoulder against Alma’s when they stopped in front of the fork in the hallway where they’d have to separate.  
Alma bumped his shoulder back. He was still sad about Marguerite, but now he had to “turn his attention forwards”, like Doctor Sahlins always coached him and Yuu too. He needed to concentrate. Maybe, if he did well enough this time and managed to synchronize with the Innocence, neither him or Yuu or any of the other apostles who _would_ join them one day would have to go through this again.  
The group of Crows that had been walking with them split up. Three went to the entranceway on the left, and three on the right. They waited silently with their hands clasped under their cloaks.  
“God be with you,” Edgar told the boys, like always, and then he disappeared to the observation room with the other scientists.

 

It was just him and Yuu and the Crows now. Before Alma could think better of it he grabbed Yuu’s hand in both of his. “I’ll see you after, Yuu,” he promised.  
Synchrotests always seemed endless, so it was good to have a reminder that they weren’t. If he made Yuu a promise he’d have to keep it. And hopefully Yuu would remember it too, so _he_ could have something to hold onto.

Yuu looked surprised and then pretended to not care, like he always did, but he still squeezed Alma’s fingers back.

  
Honest joy rushed through Alma. Even now that they’d been friends for a few months, Yuu showing that he liked Alma still made him so happy. Every time.  
He smiled warmly at Yuu when the Crows tugged them away from each other, and kept smiling in his direction even while he was ushered past the hallway’s threshold and down into the dark.

 

_//_


End file.
